5 Reasons 2013 Was Actually 1996 All Over Again

Now is the time of year for all the periodicals across the land to cobble forth their year-end lists of all that year-related shit that happened this year. For example, Highlights: Fun With a Purpose will release a list of "The 26 Most Essential Letters of the Alphabet of 2013." Likewise, The Daily Mail will publish "The 26 Most Important Letters of the Alphabet of 2013," because they'll have simply copy-pastedHighlights, as The Daily Mail knows its audience.

Children's Television Workshop"No. 10: The Letter O. Very important. You can barely speak English without it."

But here at Cracked Dot Com, you'll find no such mealy-mouthed nostalgia. We have no desire to bowdlerize for the last 365 days, during which you almost assuredly roared out somewhere between 365 and 1,460 bowel movements (because you're a goddamn beast, reader). No, we're going to let you in on a dark truth: 2013 WAS JUST 1996 IN DISGUISE. (Although we initially mistook 2013 for 1986, after confusing Kanye West's "Bound 2" with the end credits to Pee-wee's Playhouse.)

YouTubeNot coincidentally, his pet names for Kim's breasts are "Globey" and "The King of Cartoons."

Behold Cracked's evidence, five telltale signs this year was not the year you thought it was. So if you wrongly believe what year it currently is, this will be the most important thing you will read all year. Year year year.

(In 1996 we all eagerly awaited The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), but few realized Spielberg's velociraptors were all bullshit. Discover raptors' actual size and plumage (yes, plumage) inThe De-Textbook.)

Whenever an elected official's in danger of acting competent, Rob Ford and Silvio Berlusconi jet to the scene in their invisible airplane, shaped like a flying fuck.

... you're left wondering where free will ends and "I am the earthly vessel for the manitou of Matt Foley" begins. That's one explanation I've got. The other is that it's actually 1996, we're all unwitting background characters in a Saturday Night Live sketch, and our universe will soon be destroyed to make room for a Tide commercial.

#4. Our Superhero Movies Are Crazy Arcane Again

For our second clue that 2013 was just 1996 playing a trick on us, we must look to superhero cinema, which is the only form of artistic expression the human race seems to enjoy anymore, Beyonce, XVideos, and The Sound of Music Live! notwithstanding.

This year, Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World reaped in all the buffalo nickels and haypennies, even though they were movies about Iron Man and Thor, a fact we take for granted. Seriously, if you time-traveled back to 2003 (the heyday of the X-Men flicks) and prophesized, "10 years from now, America's biggest cultural exports will be the superheroes nobody's given a shit about ever," even Stan Lee would not be a true believer. Also, you'd be butt-naked -- we're assuming Terminator physics here -- so that too would compromise your credibility.

And if some random bystander tolerated your time-displaced naturism long enough for you to explain the popularity of Iron Man 3 and The Dark World, you'd jabber some nonsense about Robert Downey Jr. and Loki, at which point, if you're lucky, these images would flit into 2003 guy's brain:

20th Century Fox Television/Marvel Productions"Ah, so 2013 is the post-apocalypse, and there are only two VHS tapes left in existence. Got it."

Iron Man 3, The Dark World, the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy, and Big Hero Six -- all of these films lack the culturally entrenched concepts of, say, a Superman movie. Think "Lois Lane," "Kryptonite," and (to a much lesser extent) "tossing your own logo at people."

For its flicks, Marvel had to root around in their intellectual property cistern and dredge up plot gunk (think "Extremis," "Malekith the Accursed") that makes comic book dipshits like me coo like we're at Meet the Breeds and normal moviegoers consult Wikipedia pages that might as well be written in Esperanto.

io9"Production promised us $1 million for every audience member who knows who Yondu the Space Archer is."
"Great! So what's our budget?
"A Wendy's hamburger."

So yeah, it's pretty hilarious that the American movie industry now relies on ideas cognizable only to people whose investments are primarily tied up in scale replicas of Galactus' hat. It's also the cinematic dream of 1996, albeit fully realized. What am I talking about? These were the top superhero movies that came out in 1996:

Gramercy Pictures/Concorde-New Horizons/Paramount PicturesReaders born after 1992: These are not stock photos from a pamphlet for a discount sex shop.

Remember, back in '96, Marvel superhero blockbusters weren't on the scene thanks to courtroomhijinks. In 1996, all we had were adaptations of Barb Wire, Vampirella, and The Phantom -- none of which were household names -- and they all collectively made $17.65.

Gramercy PicturesFun fact: Barb Wire's opening credits had a topless Pam Anderson in a desperate ploy to get you to sit through the damn movie.

NOTE: Where does The Man of Steel fit in my "2013 was 1996" paradigm? Simple: Tim Burton is to Joel Schumacher as Christopher Nolan is to Zack Snyder. (Oooh, I'm nasty!)

ORAU.orgThe impasse had no effect on the public's opinion of the radioactive toothpaste, a rare windfall that the lobby seized with vigor.

All those stuffed shirts on the Potomac wished to sidestep this shitshow because Congress already had a case study: the budget showdown(s) at the tail end of 1995/early 1996. Like 2013, the Republicans walked away looking like crap, as Americans generally don't enjoy politicians playing chicken with their government jobs and tax dollars. Also, they fucking love Old Faithful.

So why didn't shutdown proponents heed the hard, obvious lessons of 1996? Two theories: Either A) they got brain-drunk on too much House of Cards and fashioned themselves as silver-tongued, blogger-banging Machiavellis who don't play by Washington's rules; or, my preferred one, B) 2013 was 1996.